Do you???

Including water, I log everything. This is a life style change, I spent 50+ years practising increasingly POOR eating/ exercise habits. And it got me to 31BMI and around 60-70 pounds overweight. In August last year, nearing my 53rd birthday and struggling to carry laundry up the stairs, something finally clicked. It was time to really change. I took a hard hard look at what I'd done to get there and what I'd tried, what had failed.

The hard truth is, (and what most of the long term successful MFP'ers also practise) losing weight is hard work. Exercise won't do it, diet won't do it. You need both. And for those of us who are more than just a little overweight or clinically obese, all the research shows that strict counting (weighing, recording) of calories in and calories out (via heart rate monitoring) is the MOST effective way to teach oneself and completely shift lifestyle. Face it, for this to be a long term success, it requires long term (life long) changes. Anything else is just temporary and will lead to failure.


Weight Watchers works (at least initially) because of the monitoring of the calorie equation. They do it through an "easy to understand" point system. That's marketese for "you won't have to be responsible for learning anything about what your body needs, we'll do it for you and as a side benefit (for us) we'll create a dependence on our system (i.e. revenue stream) from you to us". Like any business, WW's primary objective is to make money off of its customers. Sure they want to help clients lose weight, but more than that, they want a piece of the enourmous get-skinny-without-having- to-work-hard-at- it-market in North America. And they want to create continuing business (client relationship).

I have no problem with people making money, but when it comes to being a part of this sector of the economy, I'm learning to be a much more savvy consumer. The book I cite below has a key question for everybody embarking in this fitness/weight loss industry: "you should assess every fitness claim - whether it is a new form of exercise or an amazing new product (raspberry ketones anybody?) after first asking yourself this question: does anyone benefit financially from creating the perseption that this works? If the answer is yes, adopt a healthy dose of skepticism."


I did the Weight Watchers thing years ago. Yes, in the short term for most of its clients, the point system works. But long term? What is it's independently assessed success rate? It's a rare customer in WW who learns about the NUTRITIONAL distribution of those calories in, and the most accurate methods to track calories out (not to mention the way you need to exercise to get the fat off). I lost 15 pounds, went off it (figuring I learned what I needed) then slowly gained it all back ..... and way way more.

So yes, track all consumption (even water) so you can also follow the nutritional distribution of those calories. You need to have a healthful distribution carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Not to mention fiber, and for us "older" women (NOT ME! tee-hee) CALCIUM. Sodium is another mineral one responder pointed out they track - me too.

And cheating? No room for that way of thinking for me anymore. Cheating implies there is something distasteful, unpleasant, undesierable, and ultimately, transient about the way one eats the other days of the week.

Having a decadent cupcake from Crave, wine, a hot Italian sausage is not cheating unless I choose to think of it that way. OF course if I eat that way too much of the time, I will not gain the health benefits of clean eating and hard workouts that form the foundation of my new way of caring for myself.

This rant brought to you by my continuing exploration of : "The Cure For Everything! Untangling the Twisted Messages About Health, Fitness and Happiness" by Timothy Caulfield, a professor int he Faculty of Law and the School of Public HYealth as well as research director of the Health Law and Science Policy Group at the University of Alberta.

RANT OVER

I just looked back at my diary, and fruits and veggies make up about 20-25% of my daily calories...so yes I log them, and I weigh almost all of them to get accurate numbers.

I log everything because I'm also watching my sodium

I was wondering how do you add the sodium in the food bar, i just have :

Calories/ Carbs /Fat /Protein


Thanks

From your home page, hit "Settings" and then "Diary Settings" and you can add it.

Thank you so much!!!!

Yes, I'm logging everything I eat - I find that I make better choices just knowing I'm going to be logging them.

As for fruit, I need to log it because I have a sweet tooth and could easily go over the recommended amount of sugar for the day.

Whats the point of logging if you selectively leave things out because you "dont' want them to count against your calories"? Isn't that kind of defeating the point?

This

If I were your friend on here and didn't see them, I'd be asking you where they were. Log them!

I'm guessing that anyone who says you don't have to log your vegetables eats very few of them.

This.